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Page 10
The maid still remained inflexible, till Wild offered to lend his
friend a guinea more, and to deposit it immediately in her hands.
This reinforcement bore down the poor girl's resolution, and she
faithfully promised to open the door to the count that evening.
Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few
people care to do without a fee, but his money too (a sum which
many a good man would have made fifty excuses before he would have
parted with), to his friend, and procured him his liberty.
But it would be highly derogatory from the GREAT character of
Wild, should the reader imagine he lent such a sum to a friend
without the least view of serving himself. As, therefore, the
reader may easily account for it in a manner more advantageous to
our hero's reputation, by concluding that he had some interested
view in the count's enlargement, we hope he will judge with
charity, especially as the sequel makes it not only reasonable but
necessary to suppose he had some such view.
A long intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr.
Wild, who, being by the advice of the count dressed in good
cloaths, was by him introduced into the best company. They
constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions, gaming-tables, and
play-houses; at which last they saw two acts every night, and then
retired without paying--this being, it seems, an immemorial
privilege which the beaus of the town prescribe for themselves.
This, however, did not suit Wild's temper, who called it a cheat,
and objected against it as requiring no dexterity, but what every
blockhead might put in execution. He said it was a custom very
much savouring of the sneaking-budge, [Footnote: Shoplifting] but
neither so honourable nor so ingenious.
Wild now made a considerable figure, and passed for a gentleman of
great fortune in the funds. Women of quality treated him with
great familiarity, young ladies began to spread their charms for
him, when an accident happened that put a stop to his continuance
in a way of life too insipid and inactive to afford employment for
those great talents which were designed to make a much more
considerable figure in the world than attends the character of a
beau or a pretty gentleman.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MASTER WILD SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS, AND RETURNS HOME AGAIN. A
VERY SHORT CHAPTER, CONTAINING INFINITELY MORE TIME AND LESS
MATTER THAN ANY OTHER IN THE WHOLE STORY.
We are sorry we cannot indulge our reader's curiosity with a full
and perfect account of this accident; but as there are such
various accounts, one of which only can be true, and possibly and
indeed probably none; instead of following the general method of
historians, who in such cases set down the various reports, and
leave to your own conjecture which you will chuse, we shall pass
them all over.
Certain it is that, whatever this accident was, it determined our
hero's father to send his son immediately abroad for seven years;
and, which may seem somewhat remarkable, to his majesty's
plantations in America--that part of the world being, as he said,
freer from vices than the courts and cities of Europe, and
consequently less dangerous to corrupt a young man's morals. And
as for the advantages, the old gentleman thought they were equal
there with those attained in the politer climates; for travelling,
he said, was travelling in one part of the world as well as
another; it consisted in being such a time from home, and in
traversing so many leagues; and [he] appealed to experience
whether most of our travellers in France and Italy did not prove
at their return that they might have been sent as profitably to
Norway and Greenland.
According to these resolutions of his father, the young gentleman
went aboard a ship, and with a great deal of good company set out
for the American hemisphere. The exact time of his stay is
somewhat uncertain; most probably longer than was intended. But
howsoever long his abode there was, it must be a blank in this
history, as the whole story contains not one adventure worthy the
reader's notice; being indeed a continued scene of whoring,
drinking, and removing from one place to another.
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